


As if You Just Woke Up

by flashindie



Category: Glee
Genre: F/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-18
Updated: 2013-02-18
Packaged: 2017-11-29 16:10:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 431
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/688882
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flashindie/pseuds/flashindie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“You’re good,” she concedes later, when the director’s gone to have a cigarette and the chorus line is bumbling around, gossiping about whatever. “Your falsetto in the second verse needs work, but you’re good.” </p>
<p>“You’re better,” he says, and nothing about him was ever hesitant, but it is now. Unsure. It’s been so long, but Rachel will still go home and scrub her hair and her skin until she can get the smell of egg out of her head.</p>
            </blockquote>





	As if You Just Woke Up

It’s so much later, she almost doesn’t recognise him. The curl of his hair and the brightness of his eyes a reminder more than trademarks and his voice unfolds in the rehearsal like an olive branch or a white flag. His posture taut but aimed at her, as she starts on her lines. 

They’re not kids anymore, and this isn’t some Romeo and Juliet fiasco; he’s not in Vocal Adrenaline and she has no intention of killing herself over him, but he’s the Erik to her Christine in this year’s production, and they’re both nothing if not performers. 

“You’re good,” she concedes later, when the director’s gone to have a cigarette and the chorus line is bumbling around, gossiping about whatever. “Your falsetto in the second verse needs work, but you’re good.” 

“You’re better,” he says, and nothing about him was ever hesitant, but it is now. Unsure. It’s been so long, but Rachel will still go home and scrub her hair and her skin until she can get the smell of egg out of her head.

Right now though, eyes hard and lips pursed, she tosses her hair back off her shoulder and says, “The best.” 

&

He invites her back for coffee and practice and she follows with lost intentions and a new dress, because he’s the only leading man who’s ever been able to keep up with her and really, their children would have perfect pitch and bone structure. 

There’s a program from her first Broadway show strategically placed on the coffee table in his living room, a prop in case the conversation runs dry. A piano in the corner and a bookshelf full of sheet music. It looks like her apartment, just in more neutral tones. 

Coffee turns into wine, red, the colour of her lipstick against his neck and with her shirt off and his fingers inside her bra, he says, “I could be the Tony to your Maria, the Marius to your Cosette,” and Rachel kisses him harder, memorises every hitch in his breath, every hum and groan that rings like music in the back of her head. 

This time she lays him back, straddles his hips and watches when his eyes trace her collarbone and the way their moans come out in perfect harmony and it’s a shame that no one else will be able to hear this, because he’s beautiful and she’s wonderful and he won’t ever hurt her again. Not now, because she’s stronger and they’re both stars, beyond Vocal Adrenaline and New Directions, just this time she’ll make sure hers shines brighter.


End file.
